I’ve noticed how much I enjoy photographing facades of buildings. There’s so much diversity in them—loads of fun colors and details, too. I recommend Ulysses’ for a beer, Miss Lily’s for brunch, Jeffery’s Grocery for happy hour, and Gia’s Garden Jewels for a slice of East Village local flavor.

Nick got a few sets of VSCO Film and I finally got to try it out with some photos we took in Central Park a few weeks ago. I’ve been using Lightroom for the past year for photo editing but VSCO Film + Lightroom = Mind Blown.

I’m hoping to incorporate more nature inspired details and motifs in my work this year so I tried to use my recent 2.5 week break from the computer and limited internet to get creatively inspired by my surroundings, and not the things that were trending on the internet, blogs, or Pinterest. This is normally harder to do when the internet is so accessible, so I welcomed the opportunity of being truly offline for a long period of time. I’d love to say that I’m constantly inspired by my environment but the reality is that 8 hours a day, my environment is my glowing computer screen and there are times I rely on it far more than I’d like to admit. I’m willing to bet that I’m not alone here (hopefully??). I’m still trying to incorporate taking walks outside into my day, but so far that’s not going so well…

It’s amazing how heightened my awareness became to the natural beauty around me and how much inspiration I started finding in the most macro details of my environment. This set of photographs I took are close-ups of different natural settings in Chile. But it really doesn’t matter that these were taken in Chile—I want these photographs to be about the texture and details found in nature and stripped from their context.

Last week I came across this new amazing photography service called Exposure. From their website:

Exposure was created for photographers who want a more meaningful and effortless way to publish their work — in the context of a narrative, instead of a feed or single photo on a permalink page. We help you tell a great story, while putting your photography front and center.

I got a invitation to use the beta version of Exposure and the product is beautiful, easy to use, and the photo narratives on there so far are pretty captivating. People are telling stories about local artisans, exotic travel destinations, and awesome events that I’ve never heard about before (a Holi run?! Genius. Sign me up next year.) I’ve been putting together photo essays on this blog for some time now and I love telling stories through photography, so I couldn’t wait to try out Exposure. I just put up my first Exposure post with some photos I took of my hometown this past Thanksgiving break. I highly recommend requesting a Beta invite so you can start telling your own stories.

Maiyet is a luxury brand based out of New York that sells well designed and high quality items that are made around the world (Bolivia, India, New York, Italy, Kenya, to name a few). I was on their site yesterday and noticed their seasonal campaigns. These photos are from their Spring 2013 campaign and the photography is amazing—I’m in love with every photo. The rest of their campaigns are equally stunning as well.

Ah summer… please don’t go! Biggest lesson learnt this weekend? Sometimes it takes 5 tries and the help of a nice boy named Kyle to start a fire. But 5 tries is worth it when you finally get the fire going and aren’t relegated to eating bagels in your tent for dinner.

Out of all the social media out there, I’d say Instagram is probably my favorite. If I had to kill off all the different social media one by one, Instagram would be the last one to go. There is some serious talent on Instagram and I love discovering new people to follow on there. The following three feeds are my newest discoveries:

1. kimhaggstrom: A feed filled with nature and snippets of life in the Pacific Northwest. Kim’s photos have a wonderful moodiness and utilize negative space wonderfully.

2. yasminemei: Yasmine is a floral designer whose Instagram feed shows off her beautiful work. These photos always make me smile. I can look at beautiful photos of flowers for days.

3. canarygrey: Wing Ta is a photographer by profession, so there is no doubt that her Instagram feed is amazing. She has a great eye and I love that her entire feed is really cohesive and speaks the same visual language. She uses great composition, lighting, and her photos have an incredible brightness to them.

When I first started this blog, I wrote a post about a photo project I did when I visited Portugal and forgot my camera at home. I’ve decided to reembark on this little photo journey of mine and share certain experiences and moments in my life in this format. To recap: I take a picture of something directly above me, directly in front of me, directly below me, and then put the photos together in a triptych. I find the result to be immersive and complete. I’m starting to realize that I’m big into immersive type environments. I like being pulled into a piece of work, not just stare from a distance.

The two triptychs are from my weekend. The first is a wedding I attended. The sky looks ominous but the rain held off through the ceremonies. The second is when Nick and I went bowling in the middle of the two wedding ceremonies. I didn’t have socks, so they gave me these dorky (awesome) socks with bowling balls on them. Nick bowled in a suit and still had a score 3x mine.